WITH A GOLDEN NECKLACE.

Portrait of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1749–1832
51The Poems

THIS page a chain to bring thee burns,

That, train'd to suppleness of old, On thy fair neck to nestle, yearns,

In many a hundred little fold.

To please the silly thing consent!

'Tis harmless, and from boldness free; By day a trifling ornament,

At night 'tis cast aside by thee.

But if the chain they bring thee ever,

Heavier, more fraught with weal or woe, I'd then, Lisette, reproach thee never

If thou shouldst greater scruples show.

1775.*

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